Rock Climbing at Cathedral Domain

😭 I FINALLY made it climbing outside again!

I will be the first person to admit that I am NOT an expert climber. Now, don’t get me wrong with what I am about to say- I absolutely love pushing myself. And there are few things that are more satisfying than climbing a really hard route. Believe you me, I celebrate and take pictures of the route name to be sure I can remember those daunting cliff faces that I’ve successfully sent. But- at the end of the day…

I just love being there.

I grew up in Arizona. And for a good chunk of my life I lived less than a mile from the national forest line of the most gorgeous 6,000 ft rock faced mountain range at the edge of a valley surrounded by other equally beautiful and impressive mountains. Mountains are in my blood. And being there next to a rock face makes me so incredibly happy.

“There are two kinds of climbers,

those who climb because their

heart sings when they’re in the mountains,

and all the rest.”

– Alex Lowe

Cathedral Domain is such an incredibly beautiful area. Especially with all of the spring foliage, it was absolutely breathtaking. Baby fern tendrils unfurling, moss greening, young leaves all shades of the brightest greens, and wild irises! As I walked along, I kept making comments about how beautiful it was. And how fucking happy I was to be there. How much I had missed it.

I scared a super adorable little frog after it hopped out from under a leaf and scared me. I’m not sure why, but I have a fascination with touching frogs and lizards and snakes. Check out the video. I booped him. He didn’t like it, so I did apologize for scaring my little friend! I’m not sure if it is just that this is a newer and less known area, or if navigating the trails that are not terribly well mapped and a super lack of signage makes it a less popular area, but it can be really nice to have a quiet hike and wall all to yourself.

My last outdoor climb was March of 2020! With all of the uncertainty last year, I made the personal choice not to climb outside for the rest of the season. I did make it to the climbing gym a handful of times and was at least able to not let my hands go completely soft! But climbing inside and climbing outside are very different things. In my off time, I also worked on my pull-ups. (Post coming soon.)

Yoga and climbing are such a perfect combination. Mobility when climbing is a huge advantage! Being able to keep your hips close to the wall and get your foot and leg higher really helps. The first time that I ever touched my foot to my head in flip grip king pigeon was after a day of climbing! I was so excited! Ever since I have had the tradition of taking either a pigeon or dancer picture when I climb and it makes my heart happy to be able to look back on those memories.

The most asked questions that I get far and away are about safety and how the ropes work while climbing. Climbing has a whole set of its own lingo and terminology. I do sport climbing, and need a pretty minimal amount of equipment. There are giant screws drilled deep into rock with a bolt set onto the end of them, onto which you clip a quick draw- a double carabiner with some webbing between. One carabiner clips onto the bolt, you pass the rope through the one on the other end. The bolts are usually set fairly close together so that you aren’t climbing very far above your last safety point, meaning that if you lose your footing or grip and fall, you will only drop a few feet at most. Though it does feel like so much more when you are in the moment lol! You climb and set the route as you go. If you are with people who don’t lead climb, you can set up a top rope at the top so that the next person can be safely belayed their entire climb and not have to worry about any of that. At the end you “clean” the route, removing all of your equipment. I highly recommend lessons on this as it is very literally life or death.

Rock climbing, like most activities, is generally as safe as the people involved take their safety precautions.

• Check all of your equipment, make sure everyone is tied in correctly, be sure that people are paying attention and communicating before you start to climb.
• After you get the first clip in point set- climb just enough to get off of the ground and test your belayer. (I literally do this at the beginning of every climbing day, why not?)
• Talk, listen, pay attention. See how that is in there twice?
• Use backup safety measures, and keep things as simple as possible. Simple is safe.
• Test and retest when you are putting your life on the rope. Retest until you are sure that you are ready to proceed.

Even if you aren’t a climber, the hiking is still gorgeous. Though I recommend being very careful about your foot placement as a lot of the trails aren’t very well worn in on the mountainside lol. Truly, the most dangerous part of this day was hiking the trails! I came to a very steep ledge where I needed to climb down a little cliff to another ledge where the trail turned. There was quite a pile of slick leaves on the trail, so I grabbed onto the rock face as an extra contact point. And the freaking rock chunk broke off! I will tell you that my adrenaline was through the roof! But I managed to stop my slide in time and survived to tell the tale.

And near one of the main trailheads, there is actually a place to get fresh spring water. I did not personally get any, but I know that others do! I would be mighty temped to treat it before I drank it myself!

So this trip was not a day packed with pushing limits (I climbed the wall with the easiest routes that I could find) or seeing how many times I could make it up and back down. But it surely was an enjoyable way to dust off the cobwebs and get back into the groove of things.

Of course, it is tradition to end a climb with getting a pizza. Miguel’s is iconic in the area. But on weekends it is usually very crowded. So I went to a new to me spot on the way back home. The Big City Pizza Company. Honestly, this cracked me up. Places that advertise that they specialize in famous pizzas from more than one city don’t usually get them right. Not to mention that their logo looks like someone entered pizza into a SEO search lol! (Sorry, that was mean 😂) Honestly though, I tried the stuffed and thin crust and both were really great. I will definitely be a repeat customer. And I washed it down with vacation beer from SC. All in all a pretty great day.

First outside climb of 2021 in the books. Hopefully more to come!